Hill. — Buapehu and Ngauruhoe. 605 



gathered during my various journeys to the district. The 

 southern division of the volcanic zone extending from north 

 Taupo, where the Waikato Eiver leaves the lake, to Karioi, 

 south of Euapehu, is situated on a plateau varying in height 

 from 1,700ft. to 4,500ft. above sea-level. The highest part 

 of this plateau is between Euapehu and the active volcano 

 Ngauruhoe, which is the true watershed separating the soui'ces 

 of the Waikato and Wanganui Eivers. The plateau extends 

 generally in a north-east and south-west direction for a dis- 

 tance of sixty miles, with a breadth varying from ten miles 

 to thirty miles. Its eastern boundary is formed by the Ivai- 

 manawha and Tewhiti ranges of mountains, and on the west 

 it has the old trachytic mountains known as the Hauhunga- 

 roa Eange, of which Hauhunga is the principal point. The 

 latter range passes along the west side of Taupo Lake at a vary- 

 ing distance of from ten to fifteen miles. The plateau itself 

 has a slope to the north-east and south-west, the height around 

 Tapuaeharuru being about 1,700ft., and at Karioi 2,550ft., 

 above sea-level. Almost in the centre of the plateau in its 

 longest direction runs the present line of volcanic activity, wliich 

 includes hot springs, fumaroles, solfataras, extinct and active 

 volcanoes, and volcanic shafts or volcanoes in embryo. If a 

 line could be drawn from the most southerly peak of Euapeliu, 

 known as Paraetetaitonga, to Mount Tauhara, at the north 

 end of Lake Taupo, it would include the following active and 

 extinct cones: Euapehu, Ngauruhoe, Tongariro (3), Pihanga, 

 and Tauhara, besides numerous smaller ones. On the plateau 

 to the west of Euapehu there runs in a direction almost west 

 by north a line of low volcanic cones, but craterless, for a 

 distance of about two miles, the height of the cones being from 

 150ft. to 250ft. above the general level of the plain. Between 

 the north end of Tongariro and Pihanga, and the latter moun- 

 tain and Tauhara, are areas of depression, in the first of which 

 is situated the beautiful Lake Eotoaira, and in the second 

 Lake Taupo, the largest of New Zealand lakes. Eotoaira 

 is 1,710ft. above sea-level, and Taupo is 1,250ft. 



It would seem that at one period Taupo formed a much 

 larger lake than it now does, and possibly it extended over 

 and included Eotoaira, and much of the swamp-country be- 

 tween that lake and the streams wliich drain into the upper 

 waters of the Wanganui. Eotoaira has an area of about 

 12,000 acres, and is about four miles and a half long by two 

 miles broad. It is connected with Lake Taupo by a stream 

 called Poutu, which passes over a trachytic lava-flow from 

 Tongariro, and which has partly filled up the valley between 

 the latter mountain and Pihanga. The distance between Eoto- 

 aira and Taupo is about fourteen miles, so that the fall is less 

 than 40in. to the mile. In the Poutu Stream, at a place 



